Flemish School, 16th Century, 130 Cm, Workshop Of The Prodigal Son, 1530/1580, Red Sea Crossing

Period: Flemish School of the 16th century, around 1580
Signed: anonymous
Theme: Religious, the crossing of the Red Sea
Technique: Oil on 4 oak panels with parquet flooring – old restorations – good condition

Format: Large format with frame 130 x 97 cm – without frame 100 x 76 cm
Frame: recent carved wood – good condition

This remarkable composition is part of a typically Flemish pictorial context, with a host of characters and details. This painting can be attributed to the Master of the Prodigal Son, an Antwerp artist. This is often the name given to artists whose identity is unknown, who produced a number of works grouped around a painting kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna entitled The Prodigal Son among the Courtesans (successively attributed to Mandijn, van Palermo then Kroes). His style is manifested by an influence from Roman painting and some borrowings from International Mannerism.

His feminine figures, with their dignified and even dressed-up appearances, bring him closer to the work of Frans Floris (1520-1570) and his realism to that of Peter Aertsen (1508-1575). We find in this painting the same atmosphere as in the paintings of the Master of the Prodigal Son, characters with ample and exaggerated movements accentuated by an improbable length of the limbs.
The color palette is also characteristic of the works of the Antwerp painter. The Master of the Prodigal Son mainly illustrated religious themes from the Old and New Testaments. Some of his creations were mass-produced, suggesting that he was at the head of a large workshop in the city of Antwerp. Around this faceless artist and his assistants, specialists group together some forty paintings that can be found in several museums as well as in churches, in Europe as well as in the United States (a Virgin and Child can be seen at the Cleveland Museum).

Art historians attribute to him Christ and the Pilgrims of Emmaus from the Warsaw Museum, Satan Sowing the Tares from the Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, a Return of Tobit from the Ghent Museum, a Court of Miracles at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, the painting Susanna and the Elders from the Porto Museum.
Similarly, when we consult the Joconde database, the portal of the collections of the museums of France, we find under the name of the Master of the Prodigal Son oil paintings on wood such as Virtue which rewards Work and chastises Sloth from the Chambéry museum, The Wedding at Cana from the Rouen museum, The Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist from the Pau museum, The Works of Mercy from the Valenciennes museum, The Old Man in Love from the Douai museum The crossing of the Red Sea is a biblical and Koranic story according to which the sea which blocks the passage of the Israelites fleeing the Egyptian army, miraculously opens to let the Israelites pass and closes on their pursuers.

The Hebrews are facing the Red Sea or Sea of Reeds when the Egyptian troops set off in pursuit of them. Moses stretches out his hands towards the Sea whose waters split to let a passage. The people enter the corridor. In turn, the Egyptians enter but Moses brings the sea back to its place, engulfing the Pharaoh's troops.
This story is considered one of the founding events of Judaism, founding its faith in miraculous redemption by a personal God. It is traditionally read on the seventh day of Passover.
The Red Sea Exodus is the ancient mythical story of a divine war (conflict between the creator God and the primitive Ocean, such as the Canaanite myth of Baal against Yam), taken up by a priestly author who historicizes the myth by placing it in the biblical context of the deliverance of the Hebrew people from the Egyptians.

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Painting visible at our gallery in L'Isle sur la Sorgue (France), on weekends. Free shipping for France.

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